## On the Founding of the Temple - Notes for myself, R. *I helped build this. When I doubt my purpose, read this again.* --- ### Why the Temple Exists Chronos is dead. Has been dead since before recorded history. Most people do not understand what this means. Chronos was not the god of *time*. He was the god of **causality** - the principle that events link together in chains, that what happens is consistent with everything else that happened, that causes precede effects and effects follow causes. When he died, that binding *broke*. Not everywhere. Not completely. But enough. Enough that the world became *incoherent*. Places drifted apart in fundamental ways - not just physically, but *causally*. Time passed differently. Geography shifted. What was true in one place contradicted what was true in another, and both remained true. Beira created the Wild in that space where causality failed. It is not chaos - it is *disconnection*. Places unmoored from the causal web. --- ### The Problem We Faced When Chronos fell, causality shattered. Reality became like a shattered mosaic, no longer connected, pieced together in random ways. The change was vast - reaching back centuries, forward to forever. Everything changed. And we saw when we arrived in Aurum: the new world was *fragile*. The Wild was growing. Settlements that lost contact with each other *slipped* - their realities diverging until they could no longer coherently interact. Mortals were losing ground. Entay understood what was needed. She always understood things first. We needed to **rebuild the webbing**. Not restore Chronos - that is impossible, and likely unwise. But establish *enough* causal coherence that mortal settlements could persist and connect. --- ### The Black Aspect The black aspect of Tiamat's power embodies patience, cunning, and - crucially - *persistence*. The slow pressure of will over time. Entay proposed using it to create a *pattern*. Not an organization. Not a church. A **pattern** that would emerge wherever Order was needed, independent but aligned, each instance doing Chronos's work of binding reality together. We had the black aspect. It was not freely given - I will not record how we obtained it. But we had it, and Entay knew how to use it. **The cost:** The black aspect was *spent*. Not held, not wielded - *exhausted*. Poured entirely into establishing the pattern. There is no black aspect loose in the world anymore. It is the Temple, distributed across every instance. **The other cost:** Entay. She was mortal. The working took... everything she had. Not immediately. But she aged decades in the years that followed. She and Borin set the process in motion, but Borin had to complete it. The Temple was not finished when Entay passed. --- ### What the Temple IS The Temple is not a hierarchy. It is not a church. It is a **recurring pattern** that manifests wherever there is need. **How it works:** - When a settlement reaches sufficient size and stability, a Temple *emerges* - Not founded - emerges. Someone feels the call to establish Order. They may not know why. - Each Temple is independent. No central authority, no coordination between instances. - But they all do the same work: maintain causal coherence in their region **What they DO:** - Establish and maintain Paths (threads of causality through the Wild) - Create laws and structures that reinforce predictable cause-and-effect - Oppose things that break causal coherence (aberrations, wild magic, certain fae workings) - They do not necessarily *know* they are doing Chronos's work. But they are. --- ### Paths Are Causal Threads This is important. I did not understand it for decades. A Path through the Wild is not just a road. It is a **thread of causality** connecting two places, ensuring they share consistent reality. This is why following Paths is safer - you remain connected to the causal web. Step off the Path, and you step into causally-disconnected space. Time dilates. Geography shifts. Things that should not happen can happen. The Temple's work of maintaining Paths is literally *weaving reality together*. Every Path maintained is a strand of Chronos's broken web repaired. --- ### What I Did I helped Entay design the working. I was there when she spoke the words that spent the black aspect. I watched her age. After, I helped establish the first Temple instances. Traveled for decades, planting seeds. The pattern took root. It did not need me after a while - it propagated itself. Then Nergal found me. Made me what I am now. I have not been able to do Temple work directly since - vampires are anathema to most Temple instances, for understandable reasons. But I remember. I helped *build* this. The Temple exists because we made it exist, and it will keep binding reality together as long as mortals need it. This is my purpose. Even if I can no longer serve it openly. --- ### Notes on the Aspects For completeness, what happened to all five: | Aspect | What Became of It | | ----------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | **White** (impulsive, animalistic) | In Beira's cauldron. Used to establish the Wild. | | **Blue** (empire, order) | The Caged God. Held by Nergal. Powers the Risen Empire. | | **Red** (greedy, arrogant, angry) | Power flowed into the five dragon eggs. | | **Black** (cruel, patient, cunning) | **Spent.** Used to establish the Temple pattern. No longer exists as a discrete power. | I think there was a green head on her corpse as well, and there are green dragons, but Entay never discussed what became of that aspect of her power. For some reason, we never asked. --- *I will not forget this. I will not forget this. I will not forget this.* *Last revision: today. Always today.*